Together in Rural Unity

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade — the landmark Supreme Court decision that affirmed a woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion. As we celebrate this historic anniversary, we must also acknowledge that women face an unprecedented rise of state-level restrictions on reproductive health care that undermine this historic advance for women.

State legislators are pulling out all the stops to chip away at access to the reproductive health care made possible by Roe. Whether it’s by passing laws to prevent women from buying health insurance to cover abortion, defunding Planned Parenthood, or requiring those seeking an abortion to undergo an unnecessary and invasive ultrasound, they all have the same purpose: making it more difficult to get and afford the critical reproductive health services we need. In fact, in the last two years we’ve experienced the highest number of state-level attacks on women’s reproductive health ever.

Judy Waxman Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights National Women’s Law Center

P.S. The National Women’s Law Center, as the leader of the This Is Personal campaign, asked people across the country to post pictures of their shoes on Tumblr and tell us how no one knows what it’s like to walk in our shoes — and no one should try to make our reproductive health decisions for us.